L.v. Area People Cited In Game Probe Deer Among Animals Allegedly Sold Illegally

January 17, 1985|by STEPHEN DRACHLER, The Morning Call

Saying they have put a significant crimp in the black-market sale of game and fish, state and federal officials yesterday announced the indictment of 12 people and said at least 135 others face arrest.

The charges stem from a 28-month undercover investigation that involved the alleged illegal sale of venison, bear meat, striped bass, ducks, geese and other game animals. The probe went into 11 states and the District of Columbia, Pennsylvania Game Commission Executive Director Peter Duncan said.

Gerald Kirkpatrick, director of law enforcement for the Game Commission, said the investigation was the largest of its type since 1959, when another major black-market operation was put out of business.

Two of the federal indictments named Monroe County men:

- Jeff Martinell, 36, of Henryville: violation of the Lacey Act by selling and transporting bear meat from two black bears from Maine to Pennsylvania.

One of the indictments charged a Tioga County man with the illegal possession of a bald eagle. As officials announced the arrests and indictments, a stuffed, mounted eagle, found during the investigation, hung on a wall behind them.

Other federal indictments charge the interstate sale of migratory birds, conspiracy and sale of venison and bear meat across state lines.

The investigation also uncoveredthe illegal sale of explosives and one person allegedly involved in the sale of cocaine.

Most of those charged in the federal indictments filed yesterday in Harrisburg, Williamsport and Scranton are from the northern tier of Pennsylvania.

The state charges, which were being filed before district justices in the counties where the alleged offenses took place, cover most of the same offenses, but on the state level.

Here are some of the persons charged with state violations of game laws and the penalties they are being assessed:

A task force of 200 game protectors, federal authorities and police began serving the indictments and arrest citations on the defendants at 6 a.m. Tuesday, Lance Hoffman, a Game Commission spokesman said. The operation was continuing throughout the day and into the evening.

Hoffman said the task was complicated by state laws which mandate that charges be filed with the district justice in the locale of each defendant.

In all, 12 people were charged with the federal violations in the Middle District of Pennsylvania and 62 others will be charged with state offenses.

The others were charged in other states, which included Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina and Virginia and the District of Columbia.

The investigation started in Pennsylvania, where more than 275 deer and more than 1,800 pounds of venison were purchased by undercover agents. Venison from Pennsylvania was alleged to have been illegally sold in Connecticut and Massachusetts. In Maine, two bears were reported to have been illegally taken and sold in Pennsylvania.

During the hour-long news conference at the Game Commission headquarters, officials showed a videotape of some of the confiscated carcasses. They showed fish, deer and a turkey which had been illegally taken.

Duncan said that the undercover agents from the state and federal government, posing as dealers in illegal wildlife, "infiltrated several known black market operations."

In making the undercover operation public, Duncan said investigators were "appalled at what we have learned during the course of this investigation: appalled that black marketing in wildlife resources is so widespread and appalled that wildlife protection laws . . . are so wantonly disregarded."

Agents purchased more than 500 Canada and snow geese, Duncan said, with other birds sold for mounting, food and plumage. Among the birds were owls, hawks, ospreys and songbirds, he said.

Howard Larsen, northeast regional director for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Commission, which worked with the state on the probe, said that illegal operations such as the number of poaching rings found in this investigation, "may be exacting an unknown and immeasurable toll on this country's fish and wildlife."